Wimberley, Texas

Everything Wimberley is known for

4 songs mention this city 4 artists from here

Music in Wimberley

Songs About Wimberley

Wimberley
Jesse Stratton Band
80%
"Wimberley"
Texas Is My Home (Shiner Bock Mix)
Rich O’Toole
22%
"Quick turn on Devil's Backbone, it scratches up my chrome"
Bread and Water
Ryan Bingham
7%
"Sangre de Cristo to the Devils Backbone"
Screw You, We’re From Texas
Josh Abbott Band
5%
"Ray"

Artists From Wimberley

J
Jesse Stratton Band
country
R
Robyn Ludwick
country
B
Buck Meek
indie
T
Texas Renegade
country

Rivers & Roads in Song near Wimberley

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Wimberley.

Blanco River 4 songs Guadalupe River 17 songs Interstate 35 43 songs Texas State Highway 71 2 songs Pedernales River 6 songs Texas Colorado River 6 songs

History of Wimberley

The Night the Blanco Rose Forty Feet RoadyGoat

On the night of May 23 into May 24, 2015, Memorial Day weekend, the Blanco River turned into one of the deadliest flash floods in Texas history. Ten to thirteen inches of rain fell upstream in a few hours, and the river at Wimberley climbed from about 5 feet in the early evening to near 41 feet by 1 a.m., rising roughly 20 feet in a single hour. A wall of water as much as a quarter mile wide swept down the floodplain in the dark, snapping and uprooting ancient bald cypress trees that had stood on the banks for centuries and tearing homes off their foundations. One vacation house full of two families was carried downstream; most of those inside did not survive. Thirteen people were killed in the area, and several hundred homes were destroyed. The National Weather Service had issued a flash flood emergency for Wimberley near 11:24 p.m., but the river moved faster than anyone could run. Locals still mark the date, and the high-water lines are still visible if you know where to look. (Source: National Weather Service; NPR.)

RoadyGoat →

The Well That Swallows Divers RoadyGoat

Just northwest of town, in the bed of Cypress Creek, a perfectly round 12-foot mouth opens straight down into the earth. That's Jacob's Well, and from the surface it looks like an inviting blue swimming hole. Below it is one of the most dangerous cave dives in the world. The well drops about 30 feet straight down, then angles off through a series of silt-choked chambers separated by tight restrictions, bottoming out around 120 feet, with mapped passages reaching 137 feet deep and stretching thousands of feet underground. The danger is in those chambers: false passages, zero-visibility silt, and no straight shot back to daylight. Between 1964 and 1984, nine people drowned trying to dive it, eight men and one woman, most of them inexperienced in cave technique. Authorities eventually grated off the deeper passages to stop the deaths. Above the waterline it's still a beloved spot, but the well has a long memory, and locals talk about it with the respect you'd give anything that has taken that many lives. (Source: Hays County; Wikipedia.)

RoadyGoat →

Three Owners Before It Got the Right Name RoadyGoat

The town you're rolling into spent decades answering to other people's names before it became Wimberley. In 1848, the year Hays County was organized, San Jacinto veteran William Carvin Winters built a grist mill and sawmill on Cypress Creek, and the settlement that grew up around it was simply called Winters Mill. A flood wrecked the millhouse around 1856, so Winters rebuilt on higher ground across the creek. After he died in 1864, his son-in-law John Cude ran the operation and folks started calling the place Cude's Mill. The name that finally stuck arrived in 1874, when Pleasant Wimberley bought the whole complex: a stone flour mill, a French buhrstone grist mill, a sawmill, a shingle mill, and a one-stand cotton gin, all driven by a 21-inch turbine waterwheel. When the post office opened in 1880 it was soon renamed Wimberley after him. The mill ran on water, then steam, until it was finally abandoned in 1934, after more than 85 years on Cypress Creek. (Source: Texas Historical Commission marker; Handbook of Texas.)

RoadyGoat →

Johnson, William Parks

1932

William Parks Johnson, radio pioneer, the son of Rev. Luke Garnett and Carrie Moore (Parks) Johnson, was born at Sheffield, Alabama, on March 22, 1891. He attended Emory University and the University of Georgia after traveling with his circuit-riding preacher father most of his youth. He trained in Texas for World War I , rose to captain in the infantry, and married Joyce Louise Johnson of San Marcos on November 11, 1919. They had two children. One night in 1932, while handling advertising for radio station KTRH, Johnson decided to take a microphone to the street to question the passers-by. The response encouraged other man-on-the street programs, and Johnson's program, "Vox Pop," the first radio quiz show, was born. Trick questions, questions for fun, and the award of a dollar for correct answers gave "Vox Pop" another first as an audience-participation show. Coast-to-coast radio was then less than six years old. In the second year of his show Johnson was being heard in Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma, and in 1935 NBC lured him to New York City. Mrs. Johnson provided the idea of another first, the giving of gifts to participants, and eventually became known from coast to coast as Mrs. Santa Claus. "Vox Pop" began to travel-another radio-program first-and eventually covered forty-seven of the forty-eight states. People were the focus of the show-what they did and what they thought. Audiences ranged from a mere six to 56,000. "Vox Pop" also became one of the first radio programs to be telecast. By 1940, Johnson turned his focus to preparing Americans for the meaning of the increased activities of the training camps and armament industries. The show was dedicated to the war effort until the last shot was fired in 1945. "Vox Pop" was the first show to broadcast from an army training camp, from both Annapolis and West Point, from an American aircraft carrier "somewhere in the Pacific," and from war plants and training centers of every branch of the service. After the war the show became the first to undertake a good-neighbor radio tour of Latin America and before leaving the air for good traveled to Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, France, and England. The show was also broadcast at the filming locations of well-known movies. In spite of his interviews with vice presidents Nixon and Wallace, Chief Justice Earl Warren, twenty-seven governors, dozens of senators, and "bushels of generals and admirals," and with actors and singers numbering over a hundred, Johnson still saw to it that "Vox Pop" kept the spotlight on the average person, whom he believed as interesting as any celebrity. In 1948 the Johnsons retired to Wimberley, Texas. Until his death at Sabino Ranch on Cypress Creek, on October 4, 1970, Johnson helped to establish and support the Chapel in the Hills, the Wimberley Booster Club, and the Wimberley Volunteer Fire Department, as well as assisting with public relations and publicity for the community. He was a member of the Texas Philosophical Society and was president of the Hays County School Board.

Tsha Handbook →

Wimberley, Pleasant

1847

Pleasant Wimberley, miller, son of Zachariah and Quinnie (Vaughn) Wimberley, was born in Wake County, North Carolina, on May 2, 1823. He left North Carolina in 1843 with several brothers and sisters. Their destination was Texas, but the group spent their first few years in Mississippi and Arkansas; they arrived in Brenham, Texas, on Christmas Day, 1847. Pleasant Wimberley married Amanda Jackson at Brenham on January 9, 1849, and they eventually had ten children. While living in Brenham the family gathered a large herd of longhorn cattle, and in 1855 they drove the cattle north to a ranch on Walnut Creek on the Blanco-Llano county line. They lived in that area for eighteen years, raising cattle and stage horses. Wimberley bred his Percheron stallion to native horses and got horses of such size and stamina that they were in great demand. During the Civil War Wimberley served in 1861 as a corporal in the Blanco County Thirty-first Brigade, Texas Militia, and in 1864 as a second lieutenant in the Blanco and Gillespie County Third Frontier District under Brig. Gen. John D. McAdoo . After the war Wimberley moved his family out of range of the Indian depredations in Blanco County and purchased a mill on Cypress Creek in Hays County from John and Nancy Winters Cude, heirs of William Carvin Winters, who built the mill in 1850. Wimberley paid $8,000 in 1874 for 200 acres, which included the mill tract and the Winters-Cude home. The Wimberley Mill was a gristmill, sawmill, shingle mill, molasses mill, and cotton gin. Wimberley's partners were his son Zachariah and a grandson, Calvin Hickman Wimberley. Because the mill was the most important business in the town, citizens named it Wimberley Mills. By 1880 the United States post office shortened the name to Wimberley. Pleasant Wimberley died on January 30, 1919. He is buried in the Wimberley Cemetery. Inscribed on his tombstone are the words: "Pleasant Wimberley-For Whom The Town Was Named."

Tsha Handbook →

Jacob's Well

A perpetual artesian spring in Wimberley, one of the longest underwater caves in Texas. Several divers have died exploring its depths.

Natural Landmark → · 3.3 mi away

Indian Mott Skirmish

1840

After peace talks ended in the disastrous “Council House Fight” in March 1840 in San Antonio, the Comanche increased raids. Returning from a bold attack on Linnville, a band of warriors was intercepted at Plum Creek near Uhland on August 12, 1840, by 200 Texas Rangers and volunteers. A fierce running battle ensued. According to local lore, several Comanche warriors were pursued to this spot, Lone Man Creek’s horseshoe bend. Hiding their horses down the creek, they took refuge in the tall grass and an oak mott. When night fell, their pursuers retreated. By moonlight, the Comanche buried their dead under flat rocks and disappeared into the hills. (2014)

Historical Marker →

C. W. Burdett

1913

Clarence W. Burdett (1913-2001) helped build his family’s store in Wimberley in 1932, supervising the construction of the building using native and colored stone brought in from other locations. He married Pansy Rollins and together they built Camp Waloa, the first girls camp in Wimberley. Burdett lived in Wimberley for only 18 years, but left a lasting impact on the buildings there. He built around 50 rock homes along Wood Creek as well as spring boxes and dams. He recognized the tourist attraction to Wimberley, so he split up his property along Lone Man Creek and built small rock cabins to sell to wealthy vacationers from Houston. Three of the cabins he built are still standing. (2014)

Historical Marker →

Winters-Wimberley House

1857

William Carvin Winters (1809-1864) and his wife Lavinia Winters (1805-1891) came to Texas from Tennessee in 1834, along with other members of his family. William and his brothers, James Washington and John Frelan, fought in the Battle of San Jacinto, where William was severely wounded. William became a noted woodcarver and furniture craftsman in Walker County and in Seguin. The Winters family eventually settled in Hays County. William and Lavinia arrived between 1853 and 1855 and he built a mill on Cypress Creek in 1856. The mill became the economic hub of the village, which took on the name Winters' Mill. William built a homestead on this site in 1857-1858. From here he could survey his sawmill and gristmill with its power source, Cypress Creek. One of the first stone houses in the area, the Winters house boasted 18-inch thick limestone walls. After William's death, his daughter Nancy and her husband John Cude took over the mill and the village became known as Cude's Mill. They sold the mill and family home to Pleasant and Amanda Wimberley in 1874. With their son Zachary, the Wimberleys expanded their business to include the production of flour and sorghum molasses as well as a cotton gin. The village name soon changed to Wimberleyville, later Wimberley. Zachary Wimberley's son-in-law, John Will Pyland, lived in the homestead and kept the mill in business until 1925. The evolution of the house, with its various alterations and additions, reflects the changing needs of the families who occupied it. A village landmark for generations, the Winters-Wimberley house remained with Wimberley family descendants until the 1990s. (1999)

Historical Marker →

Things to Do in Wimberley

historical 16.6 mi away
Gruene Hall

Gruene Hall opened in 1878 and has never closed its doors making it the oldest continuously operating dance hall in Texas. The wooden floor is scuffed smooth…
quirky 3.0 mi away
Jacob's Well

An artesian spring flows up through a vertical cave in Wimberley so clear and so deep that from the surface you can see straight down a hundred feet into the…
historical 5.5 mi away
Devil's Backbone Tavern

Perched on the haunted limestone ridge that gives the road its name, Devil's Backbone Tavern is one of the great Texas Hill Country dive bars. The first stone…
nature 12.4 mi away
San Marcos Springs

San Marcos Springs is the second-largest spring system in Texas and the longest continuously inhabited site in North America. Archaeologists found evidence of…
historical 17.8 mi away
The Oldest Dance Hall in Texas

Gruene Hall was built in 1878 by a German cotton farmer named Henry D. Gruene and it has never stopped hosting dances. That makes it the oldest continuously…
historical 17.9 mi away
Gruene Hall

Texas' oldest dance hall (1878). Still hosts live music every night.
quirky 17.9 mi away
The Kayaker Who Saved a Ghost Town

In 1974 developers had plans to bulldoze what was left of Gruene and build suburban homes. Then a University of Texas architecture student named Chip Kaufman…
historical 18.0 mi away
Where George Strait Got His Start

Before George Strait was the King of Country he was a young singer playing regular gigs at Gruene Hall in the 1970s and 80s. The tiny dance hall with no air…
day trip
Day Trip to Wimberley 🏊🏻‍♂️ (FULL EPISODE) S2 E4

Featured on The Daytripper — a full-episode local travel guide.

Sports in Wimberley

🏆 STATE CHAMPIONS Class 4A · Volleyball · 2024

Wimberley — 2024 UIL 4A Division 2 Volleyball State Champions

Most recent: 2024 4A Division 2

Wimberley High School, nestled in the scenic Texas Hill Country, is a Class 4A powerhouse in volleyball. The Texans have established a strong tradition, culminating in a significant UIL state championship victory. Their dedication and skill on the court have brought state-level recognition to the community.

The Wimberley Texans proudly claimed the Class 4A Division 2 State Championship in 2024, a testament to their consistent effort and competitive spirit. This achievement highlights the program's success within the challenging Texas high school sports landscape, bringing a state title back to Wimberley.

State titles
2024
Most recent
2024
Class
4A
The moment

The 2024 Class 4A Division 2 State Championship marked a high point for Wimberley High School volleyball.

Sources: Wikipedia · UIL State Championship Archives

Everything Near Wimberley

440 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the nearest 200 are listed here — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

Explore Wimberley on the Map
All music from Texas → · Browse more cities